Awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for the University of Manchester, Geim and Novoselov, to reward their pioneering research on two-dimensional material graphene. Careful readers will find award-winning grounds did not use the word "discovery" means, it is because graphene exactly who discovered the remains controversial. Since Japan's NEC Corp. Iijima essay published in 1991 triggered a milestone nanotube research papers, people found that carbon nanotubes had a similar debate. Relatively speaking, jazz Curl, Kroto and Smalley for the discovery of fullerenes obtained Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996, the controversy is not.
Although the Georgia Institute of Technology de Heer noted Nobel Committee in the presence of a large number of factual errors scientific background information aspect, but it is undeniable that, Novoselov, etc., published in 2004, in 2005 to promote research papers graphene indeed swept the globe. Legal mechanical exfoliation of graphite tape prepared by Manchester's group development ene has a simple, efficient and inexpensive features to quickly research groups around the world have adopted. It is this simplicity gives graphene research enough power to make it with remarkable speed. Although this technology has been applied to the cleavage of graphite scanning tunneling microscopy, but never used to study the electrical properties of graphene excellent.
Graphene fanaticism also sparked interest in the other two-dimensional materials such as hexagonal boron nitride, silicon-ene, transition metal oxides, transition metal disulfide, graphite and fluorinated alkyl graphene. Application of graphene emerging, including many aspects of low-cost desalination, high-strength composite bearing materials, high-frequency transistors, solar cells, sensors, lithium-ion batteries and super capacitors.
de Heer on graphene pioneering work should be recognized, and his research group independently synthesized graphene use silicon carbide, and completed the determination of the electrical properties of graphene. Prior to 2004, Novoselov and other published work, de Heer had been aware of graphene will bring a miracle. His research group reported that the two-dimensional electron gas properties of epitaxial thin films of graphite, and open the way to a large-scale production of graphene nanoelectronic devices on the road. 2005, Columbia University, Kim's research group published observations of graphene quantum Hall effect and Berry phase and conduct a further study, the discovery of graphene electronics amazing feature on many important contributions to make. They graphene preparation methods and Novoselov in 2004 are reported similar. Ruoff professor of the University of Texas at Austin, has been committed to the development of CVD graphene prepared by the method using a metal catalyst, which is critical to the commercial value of graphene. Graphene research field has a lot of leaders, can not list them here. Here, all contribute to research on graphene, widely scientific impact and to help establish and improve young or senior scholars in various fields thanks.
Graphene is inseparable from the booming field of carbon nanotubes and fullerenes in the field of academics, is their own interest to invest in this new field. Characterization of graphene is generally similar to the apparatus and method of the carbon nanotube, such as a transmission electron microscope (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), to build electronic devices, diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. These methods quickly upgrade our properties for this new understanding of two-dimensional crystals, graphene may find new features.
Graphene is the basic unit constructed fullerenes, carbon nanotubes and graphite structure, but it was only in the last study, taking into account its ease of separation, it really amazing.
Many do not engage in graphene research questioned whether it was exaggerated, a similar question also occurred in the study of fullerenes (1985) and carbon nanotubes (1991), because they lack practical application, and is not on people's lives change. Fullerene, the biggest difference between the carbon nanotubes and the graphene is in the preparation. In addition to C60 and C70, a lot of preparation of high purity fullerene remains challenging. Some of the most interesting and most useful features of fullerene molecules required by doping or add functionality to achieve, but it also greatly increases the HPLC separation of time, leading to expensive. Similar to the asbestos fibers inhaled nanotubes also harmful, so much criticism. Scholars need to conduct more research to confirm the residual metal catalyst nanotube toxicity. Although carbon nanotubes on a single device level exhibited excellent performance, but there are chiral carbon nanotubes mixed problems, which makes it also has an electron transport behavior of the semiconductor and the metal, thereby severely limiting their electronic devices in the applications. Carbon nanotubes as the best representative of one-dimensional line, in-depth study of it will continue. Preparation of graphene on the challenge seems to have been resolved, the use of SiC and graphene prepared by chemical vapor deposition method has been proven to meet the electrical requirements of the application, while graphene prepared by chemical peel law is applicable to the casting process and the spray-based solution polymer blend and so on. In order to make graphene more effectively put into use, it must be attached to the surface of other materials, especially semiconductor nanomaterials. In the near future, researchers likely find cheap method to prepare high quality graphene. Perhaps it is for this reason that prior to making graphene nanotubes won the Nobel Prize, although carbon nanotubes also showed a very excellent electrical and mechanical properties, and firmly attracted the attention of many scholars in the world up to ten years.
Expert Insight
As the thinnest two-dimensional atomic crystal material sp2 hybridized carbon atoms connected by a mesh made of graphene with unparalleled features. Graphene carrier mobility is much higher than conventional silicon material, at room temperature up to the intrinsic mobility 200000cm2 / (V? S), and the electron mobility was only typical silicon field effect transistor approximately 1000cm2 / (V? s). Graphene has the highest known material thermal conductivity [about 5000W / (m? K)], high Young's modulus (1.06TPa) and fracture stress (approximately 130GPa), and a huge surface area (2630m2 / g), together with its good flexibility and transparency, making it the last decade superstar material. Graphene in many fields of high-performance composite materials, flexible displays and flexible electronic devices, electrochemical energy storage, optical communications, UHF electronic devices, such as photoelectric sensors to detect and display a broad application prospects, widespread international attention .
China is a big country study of graphene, graphene has a large research team. Currently, the total number of papers published by Chinese scientists has surpassed the United States, ranking first in the world. China's industrial R & D graphene have remarkable performance in lithium-ion batteries, mobile phone touch screen and other fields have been mass production. Needless to say, graphene research has come out of the ivory tower and into the industrial stage. In the next two decades, graphene products will come into people's lives.